Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve
| Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve | |
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IUCN category Ia (strict nature reserve)
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| Location | Santa Cruz County, California |
| Nearest city | Santa Cruz |
| Coordinates | 37°03′2″N 122°8′29″W / 37.05056°N 122.14139°WCoordinates: 37°03′2″N 122°8′29″W / 37.05056°N 122.14139°W |
| Area | 552 acres (2.23 km2) |
| Established | 1989 |
| Governing body | California Department of Fish and Wildlife |
The Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve is a nature preserve of 552 acres (2.23 km2) in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, United States. The reserve protects several rare and endangered plant and animal species within an area known as the Santa Cruz Sandhills, an ancient seabed containing fossilized marine animals.
The land was purchased in 1989 by The Nature Conservancy which deeded the property to the state, and is now managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is adjacent to the Laguna parcel of the San Vicente Redwoods protected area.
The Santa Cruz Mountains are the only known location of the Zayante soil derived from the Santa Margarita geologic formation, that occur in three clusters in Santa Cruz County.
The Bonny Doon reserve protects species adapted to a type of soil known as Zayante, a Miocene-aged marine sediment and sandstone soil from an ancient sea that encompassed California's Central Valley. As the Santa Cruz Mountains were uplifted, the seabed and shoreline terraces was exposed and is known as the Santa Cruz Sandhills.
The soil is almost 90% sand and little organic matter, found in scattered areas covering 8,400 acres (34 km2). Evidence of the soil's marine origin include fossil remains of sand dollars, bivalves and gastropods.
Botanist Peter Raven calls the Sandhills “the Galapagos Islands of Santa Cruz County.” In describing the area, he added,
"Dunes left as the ocean receded provide unusual habitats that form a mosaic of openings and unusual vegetation in the dominant forest vegetation of the region. As a model of the complexity of soils and habitats in California, the Sandhills stand out prominently! My early experiences in and around them helped to form my interest in botany and my passion for preserving plants worldwide.
“From a global perspective, the Sandhills are important because of their remarkable concentration of biodiversity. It affords a remarkable example of the persistence of rare species, of species found beyond their normal distributions, and of evolution in action.”
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Wikipedia